Joe Buck takes a lot of heat. There are plenty of people who love to hate the multi-sport broadcaster, and he’s very aware just how much people dislike him. Buck did an interview with Esquire, titled:  Joe Buck Understands Why You Hate Him. 

From Esquire:

How do you deal with criticism on social media? 

It’s not easy for my fragile ego…My therapist is always like, “Who cares?” Only one time have I had Twitter open when I was doing a game, and after that I took it off my phone. I said, “This is so counterproductive. I’m actually reacting to people reacting to what I’m saying, and it can’t work that way.”

The only guy I see on the air who legit doesn’t care what anybody thinks of him is [Charles] Barkley. But for the most part, everybody wants to be liked. At some point, you can’t be unrealistic about it. The only people I want to really like me are my family and the people who employ me.

 How do you cope with being thought of as a smug jerk?

I try to have fun with it. And whether it’s talking about it on [Howard] Stern or doing the Brockmire stuff, I think you kind of stick the pin in the balloon and let the air out, and if people know you can laugh at yourself, well, I can’t be that big of a dick. 

Fans loathe the Fox play-by-play man so much, in fact, that they created a petition to ban Buck and on-air partner Troy Aikman from announcing Green Bay Packers games.

For whatever reason, maybe it’s his punchable face, people will always hate Buck.